State Department Under Fire Over Reported Blackwater Immunity
WASHINGTON - The US State Department faced tough questions Tuesday over reports that it offered immunity to Blackwater security firm employees in the wake of a Baghdad shooting that left 17 civilians dead.
Top Democratic lawmakers sent letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding answers over reports that Blackwater, which protects US diplomats in Baghdad, had been offered protection from prosecution when the State Department investigated the September 16 shooting.
According to The Washington Post, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents who took over the investigation into the shootings are barred from using any information obtained in the State Department probe.
“This rash grant of immunity was an egregious misjudgment,” Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House of Representatives’ Oversight and Government Committee, wrote to Rice.
“It raises serious questions about who conferred the immunity, who approved it at the State Department, and what their motives were,” Waxman said, urging that the department answer his questions and provide any documents related to the reported immunity deal by Friday.
Joseph Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also sent Rice a letter asking her to confirm whether the reports are accurate.
“If so, who authorized these grants of immunity? Was there consultation with the Department of Justice prior to such grants of immunity?” Biden asked.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the department did not have the authority to give someone immunity from federal criminal prosecution.
“The kinds of, quote, ‘immunity’ that I’ve seen reported in the press would not preclude a successful criminal prosecution,” he said.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd Tuesday called the reports “inaccurate” but gave no details.
“The Justice Department and the FBI cannot discuss the facts of the Blackwater case, which is under active investigation. However, any suggestion that the Blackwater employees in question have been given immunity from federal criminal prosecution is inaccurate,” Boyd said in a statement.
If the reports of the immunity offer are accurate, though, it could reignite the controversy in the Iraqi capital over the role of private security firms such as Blackwater USA in the war-torn country, which a recent Defense Department report characterized as out of control.
The New York Times said officials in the State Department’s investigative unit, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, made the immunity offer though they lacked authority to do so.
Most of the guards involved in the shooting were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in interviews as long as their statements were truthful, the Times reported.
And one law enforcement official told the Washington Post that some Blackwater guards cited the immunity promises in refusing to be interviewed by the FBI, which took over the investigation this month.
McCormack sought to distance Rice from the scandal, emphasizing that her attitude is that “if there are individuals who broke rules, laws or regulations, they must be held to account.”
It was Rice who had asked the FBI to take over the investigation, he added.
Blackwater guards protecting a State Department convoy opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square on September 16, killing 17 civilians.
Although Blackwater guards had claimed they were fired on first, most accounts from the scene insisted that no one ever fired on the US convoy.
Blackwater boss Erik Prince has rejected an official Iraqi report calling the killings unprovoked, insisting his men were fired upon.
The Iraqi government has called for Blackwater to be barred from operating in the country.
On Tuesday the Iraqi cabinet backed a law revoking immunity granted in 2004 to private security firms operating in the country by then US administrator for Iraq, Paul Bremer.
“These companies will not get immunity and will be subject to Iraqi law,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told AFP.
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse
It will be interesting to discover just who promised Blackwater immunity from prosecution that was then “confirmed” by the State Department. My dollar’s on Cheney.
AmeriKKKa the real threat to world peace & stability
anney,
I am with you. I too will bet Cheney authorized it. Do you think the Iraqi Parliament will also repeal the same immunity declaration for the troops?
Cheney authorized it and Bush said: “Sounds good to me. You’re the boss.”
All this outrage would be funny if not for the seriousness of the potential crimes that may have been committed. If you read the report its clear that the administration doesn’t need permission, or consultation, on granting immunity to a department of the executive branch of government. the white house knows that the only thing the congress can do is impeach, the dems. won’t do that.
Under this White House, the United States has lost its integrity, its credibility as a nation. The stain of this admiminstration will last forever. From the very top, to the very bottom the US is corrupt.
What difference does it make who in the white house “granted immunity” ? Even if known they would not be charged. The whole government has run amok with no sane or honest decisions being made.
The State Department dodging responsibility and accountability in it’s explination of why they’re not holding their hired mercenaries responsible or accountable for their actions.
What country is this?
I just hope the Democrats finally see what their failure to use every strategy and tactic at their disposal to bring down this administration has done to keep empowering these criminals. They’ve pretended that this time in history is nothing but a tea party.
I am spitting ANGRY at them for taking impeachment off the table and colluding with this brutal, lying administration to give them anything they want.
They can’t say they weren’t warned.
I like to click on the artist-in-resident’s artwork every day, and today she has a good one:
http://www.commondreams.org/art/103107.htm
The President’s Halloween Mask.
Will the same lack of answerability by returning Blackwater mercenaries be carried over into actions these loose cannons take against Americans too? Only select groups, of course. Paraphrasing, but not by much, Pastor Martin Niemöller.
First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.
Then they came for the liberals
and I did not speak out
because I was not a liberal.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
That has got to be the FUGLIEST bitch in the entire universe.
Bremer’s order cannot have validity under international law. Neither he nor an occupying force has the standing under international law to issue blanket immunity to armed combatants under their command moreover to place them outside of even their own military law. Where under international or even any nation’s territorial laws are there provisions granting full immunity from all laws to anyone much less armed mercenaries for hire.
Now imagine 50,000 of these Blackwater types living back home right next to you. The Hessians were in New Orleans already.
By the way how do you end one of these private owned armies? They are setting up their own surveillance and intelligence services! How do we end this many headed hydra taking root?
Will corporations be allowed to grant immunity from even international law when it suits them too?
Mammon’s military… are mercenaries. Mammon with unregulated intelligence services? Geeze people what horror of a world we make to leave for the kids. Geeze. How do you get rid of one of these independent armies which don’t even belong to a nation but exists as a corporate entity in and of itself? Geeze!
Erik Prince is a liar. He gave perjured testimony and should be in prison.
Blackwater is the American Foreign Legion